


Heart of Gold

by fresne



Category: Slavic Mythology & Folklore
Genre: Birth control fairy tale, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 08:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16678273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: Svetlana had often heard the happily ever tale of her family. Every story ends with the princess getting married. Every story begins with the queen dying in childbirth.Svetlana had other ideas.





	Heart of Gold

Svetlana had been told her family story from the moment she was old enough to hold the magic spindle that spun wool into gold.

"Your great grandmother Tatiana was born from a golden flower that grew from a tear of the goddess Mokosh. She was born with the magic spindle in her hand and love in her heart for your great-grandfather Sergei. A shepherd singing his loneliness in her meadow. Lonely no more. They had thirteen children of their love and lived happily ever after in their little cottage. Isn't that sweet?" cooed Svetlana's nurse.

"Great-grandmother died giving birth to their thirteenth child," said Svetlana. "The only reason they had any money was the spindle that spins gold. Even then they had to hide its existence."

"Ahem, and so, your grandmother, Natalia, had a voice like an angel. That was why a wizard kidnapped her."

"That and the spindle," muttered Svetlana.

"As I was saying, he locked her in a glass mountain to sing for him alone. Until your grandfather, Prince Mikhail, back when he was still just a prince, discovered the location of the wizard's heart inside a sparrow, inside a cat, inside a boar, inside a dragon. He killed each of them in turn. He freed Natalia and won her heart. When Mikhail became king, Natalia became his queen. They lived happily ever after." The nurse sighed.

"After six stillbirths, grandmother died giving birth to my mother." Svetlana idly spun the spindle.

"Yes, and if she hadn't, you wouldn't be here. Now hush. When Katerina was born, a seer prophesied Katerina's child would set in motion King Mikhail's death. So he locked her away in a remote tower."

"Legalizing reliable birth control would have been a better idea," said Svetlana.

"But," said the nurse sturdily determined to reach the end of the story, "Perun, king of the gods, saw her. He flew through her window in the shape of an eagle. He put his lightning to good use. When it was discovered that Katerina was with child, King Mikhail put her in an oak box and left the box to float down the river. After all, anything more would be murder. The box was found by a wool merchant, Nicholai, who fell in love with Katerina. They were married three days after they met. Happily ever after." The nurse sighed dreamily with her hands clasped to her ample chest.

Svetlana looked at her nurse in disbelief. "Mother died giving birth to me."

"The child of a god in the house of a kind man, who stints her nothing. Not even a nurse." Svetlana's nurse smiled brightly. "Now, wasn't that a lovely story?"

"I'm the only one who can use the spindle," said Svetlana.

"A lovely story," said her nurse.

"I will never fall in love and have children," said Svetlana, spinning wool into gold for her keep.

Her nurse tutted. "You'll see."

When her father, Perun, visited in a boom of thunder and offered her a gift, Svetlana said, "I want reliable birth control."

Perun, thunder bringer, god of gods, looked baffled. "I…that's…perhaps a magic girdle that will ensure your fertility?"

"So, the opposite of what I asked for," said Svetlana. "Never mind, could you give me one of your magic golden apples?"

Still very confused, he gave her a magic golden apple.

Shortly after that, Svetlana was kidnapped by her father's enemy, Veles, god of the underworld, a dragon with a bear's head and floppy hairy ears.

It was a relief to find out that he only did it to annoy her father. "Show him I'm his equal." Less of a relief was having to listen to him. She spent long hours braiding his beard. Veles complained about being killed every year to end drought. Famine. Wanted to know if he'd look good with a fishtail braid in his beard. If she knew why a certain giant serpent only saw him as a friend even though he brought her presents and why were women like that.

When he fell asleep, Svetlana braided Veles's beard to his throne. She swam up out of the placid reed-filled lake at the roots of the world tree. She burst up through the still water.

On the shore was a very handsome Moorish knight. He was tall and handsome. He even had a dimple. He was putting down a heavy bundle of wood in front of an old woman.

Svetlana wrung out her skirt. "I don't need to be rescued."

"I'm here because the land needs relief from drought," said the knight.

Svetlana knew that she needed to get far away from this knight before she started bantering with him. She said, "Veles is currently braided to his throne—don't ask. Good luck." She picked up the bundle of wood easily. She was quite strong. She said to the old woman, "Where to?"

The old woman directed her to her hut, which was near a spring sacred to Mokosh. "If you drink from that spring, Mokosh will bless you with fertility. Although, it'll wreak havoc with your bladder. So not much different from regular childbirth."

"How about reliable birth control?" said Svetlana. "Is there a spring for that?"

"None such. And King Mikhail would outlaw such a thing if there were. Everyone knows he's on his seventh queen as it is in quest of an heir," said the old woman, pausing for particularly dramatic effect. "But I've heard tell that they have such a thing in the city of Cyrene. You'll have to go down the Green River and across the Black and Wine Dark Seas to reach it."

"Great." Svetlana would have set off immediately, but the old woman stopped her.

"Take these." She gave her two pebbles in the shape of breasts. "Rub these together and think of milk, and Mokosh will help you."

Svetlana, wondering if this old woman actually was Mokosh, took the stones. "Will do."

She walked through the forest until she came to the Green River. In the middle sat a giant, green toad. It belched poison. Turning the water red as blood.

The knight from before was there. He had a boat with a golden sail. He was sharpening a long lance.

She said, "If you stab the toad, the river will be poisoned for a thousand years. A creature like that needs to be burned."

"A toad in the middle of a river needs to be burned," said the knight. "Now why didn't I think of burning something sitting in water?" He rolled his eyes. "You can see why that might be a difficult, if not impossible, task."

"Not impossible. It merely requires the right tools." Svetlana threw the magic golden apple at the toad. The ball lightning of Perun flared. The river exploded. The water boiled. The toad withered and crumbled to ash. When the river stopped bubbling, Svetlana dived in to retrieve her apple.

As she came out of the river, the knight was waiting with a blanket spread out on the shore. He said, "I see why you don't need to be rescued."

Svetlana decided to risk sitting next to him. This proved to be a mistake. They exchanged names. The sun had not moved far in the sky before she was bantering with Malek. They had no sooner moved the blanket into the shade of an oak tree than their lips were put to other uses than bantering. All too soon, their activities were headed in a happily ever after direction.

She pushed him away. She said, "I've sworn a vow of chastity until I complete a certain quest in the kingdom of Cyrene."

He said, "As it happens, my mother was from Cyrene." 

She gave him a long look. She explained the end result she was looking to find.

He shrugged. "I always figured I'd be eaten by a dragon, so family planning is probably a good idea."

He volunteered to help.

They sailed down the river. The river got smaller and smaller as they went. As each place on the way took their share of the water. Until there was no river left. Svetlana asked, "Didn't killing Veles end the drought?"

Malek scowled.

"Perhaps Mokosh can help. Her name does mean moist." She rubbed the pebbles together and thought of milk.

Somewhere in a dry land far away, a golden butterfly startled a herd of hairy black bison in a dusty brown field, casting up clouds that hid the sun.

Svetlana and Malek didn't know this. They didn't wait for rain. Svetlana picked up the boat and carried it to the Black Sea.

They sailed across the Black and Wine Dark Seas. All the way to the city of Cyrene. A bustling city of great wealth and a hundred shops that sold Cyrene's primary export, silphium sap.

A shopkeeper said, "A dose of silphium sap the size of a chickpea once a month will work to prevent conception and destroy any already existing, but"—he looked them over, parsing out the best way to express bad news—"it's very expensive. Very."

Malek sighed. They couldn't steal the stuff. His cousins would never let him hear the end of it, but Svetlana said, "I've got this."

She went to the market to purchase wool.

Malek crossed his arms. "This I've got to see."

She spun it into gold with a smirk.

Malek clapped. 

She soon had enough gold to purchase her weight in sap. Acquiring seedpods required bribery and a lot of wool. "But I don't want to come back every time I need more," she told Malek as she examined the heart-shaped pods.

She swallowed a dose of silphium the size of a chickpea, and they did not get much sailing done that day.

Eventually, they returned to Svetlana's kingdom.

Svetlana could have kept the secret of the silphium to herself. Even talking about such things was illegal. Men called it immoral. Religious leaders called it sinful. King Mikhail, desiring an heir, called it a crime.

To a woman weary in the fields with children at her skirts, Svetlana gave a vial. To the unmarried women washing the laundry by the river. To the weavers and the brewers. One ale maker winked and added it to her summer ale.

She shared what she could. Grew more in hidden fields. Each vial of sap was marked with the shape of the seedpod. A heart shape. Some say this is where the shape of a heart comes from, for an actual heart looks very little like it. In any case, her reputation grew. So did the persistence of King Mikhail's soldiers.

Eventually, she and Malek were arrested. It took a hundred men to defeat them. They chained Svetlana with strong iron. They chained Malek, too. They took their weapons. They took Svetlana's magic golden apple. They took her magic spindle. That left her pebbles and her strength.

They took her before her grandfather, King Mikhail. He called her a witch. A killer of kings and children.

Without much hope, she rubbed the pebbles together and thought of milk. But Mokosh's help was already long journeyed on its ways. As it happens, it had taken quite some time to find its ways.

Rain fell from the gathered clouds. A butterfly's flap of rain. Nothing that would knock over a building. But it had been so long since it had rained, the palace roof leaked. Dripped on the heavy wood panels in the ceiling.

King Mikhail was still accusing Svetlana when a slab of wood fell on him.

Mokosh wove destinies as well as being moist.

Svetlana snapped off the chains that bound her. She smiled cheerfully at the assembled court. She cracked the wooden floor with a chain. "Well?"

Svetlana became queen, and Malek was her prince consort. The heart-shaped crest of the silphium seeds was stamped on every coin. Every woman who asked was given a vial of silphium so she could plan for the number of children that she wanted to have.

As for Svetlana and Malek, they were helping people and saving things into their old age, which was what they both wanted. They lived their lives.

Far better for them than the snip-cut thread of a happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally included this in a separate collection of short stories, which you can find by clicking to my profile. But a tumblr discussion about the lack (or suppression) of birth control got me to thinking about this. I can't link to what I do not post. So here you go.
> 
> https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/silphium-ancient-contraceptive-herb-driven-extinction-002268  
> http://mentalfloss.com/article/83685/9-forms-birth-control-used-ancient-world


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